The Junior League of Calgary, working with the YWCA and the Alberta Law Foundation, published “Law and the Abused Woman,” a 37-page pamphlet distributed by JLC members throughout Alberta and other Canadian provinces.
The Junior League of Los Angeles became the first League to start an AIDS-awareness project, later working with other Leagues to set up their own programs. The Junior League of Mexico City, for example, introduced AIDS education to Mexico.
The League established a public policy office in Washington, D.C. and hired a lobbyist to work on such reforms as mandated job leaves for new parents.
At a time when alcoholism among women was still a problem many people preferred to ignore, AJLI launched its Woman to Woman initiative, a three-year public awareness program to educate the public on the gender-specific impact of alcohol abuse cutting across socioeconomic boundaries. Within three years, more than 100 Leagues in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada were participating in the…
With the founding of the first League outside of North America, the Association’s name was official changed to The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. (AJLI).
With a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The League and The Quest National Center initiated a national leadership training program for youth called Project LEAD (Leadership Experience and Development).
Appointed by President Ronald Reagan, former Junior League of Phoenix member Sandra Day O’Connor would serve on the Court for 25 years. Sandra Day O’Connor was honored by the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1995. Read her bio on NWHoF
The Junior League was back to business as usual in many ways during the 1980s. Mary Harriman would have felt at home at the 1980 Annual Conference in Toronto as delegates gathered to consider the urban future and the challenges facing volunteers. The issues being discussed echoed the conversations of the earliest days of the League, but this time over…
Spousal abuse was just beginning to be identified as a major social problem in the 1970s when the Junior League of Bronxville started working with the county probation department to develop court assistance programs for abused wives (and husbands). With no federal legislation addressing the issue of spousal abuse, JLB’s work in one of the most affluent counties in the…
Working with the Association and the University of Minnesota, the Junior League of Minneapolis sponsored a three-day summit bringing together more than 700 delegates from 30 states and Canada. More than 50 national volunteer organizations and hundreds of local and state groups were represented.